Tuesday, June 28, 2016

On Tendai Huchu’s The Maestro, The Magistrate and The Mathematician: A Peep into an Existentialist’s Mind

Tendai’s The Maestro, The Magistrate & The
Mathematician is not a book one starts reading and then discards. It is
also not a book just riddled with beautiful lines and expressions. Simple in
language and easy to comprehend, in what seems a full representation of
Zimbabweans in the diaspora, Tendai Huchu, himself a diasporan, takes it upon
himself to talk of Zimbabweans far away from home. The Magistrate, a man
clearly in love with his roots and desirous of home, relives the experiences of
his country by listening to its musicians, he finds himself walking through the
streets and modernity of Edinburgh with Zimbabwe booming in his ears. Tendai,
in an unflinching and unsentimental way, makes us realise the power of losing
power and importance. The anchor this book holds on to is the capacity to make
the characters friends with the reader. The most distinctive character being
the Maestro. The most comedic, Alfonso. It is difficult to find something wrong
to pin on this book.

One should not be
deceived by the title of the book and restrict the book to three characters.
There is a ring of more characters around these three Ms and it is these other
characters that Tendai uses to create a Zimbabwean community. Remove the three
Ms from the book and all the talk about Sungura music and Zimbabwean
traditional musicians, as well as the long walks and descriptions of the roads
of Edinburgh, are simply page fillers and nothing else.

The Magistrate, The
Maestro and The Mathematician are apt representations of the lives of
immigrants, especially African immigrants and the challenges and changes they
face. Most importantly it highlights the common denomination that all
immigrants face: survival. And when life is a matter of survival, nothing is
too low to do, including coming as high as being a magistrate to going as low
as ‘wiping bums’. But it is in the Maestro that we find the questions that many
fear to ask themselves, what is life all about? Thinking becomes almost a
fearful thing, and to quote the Maestro, ‘once you started thinking for
yourself, you were lost.’

Too much thinking is
sometimes associated with too much walking, going round and round just as the
person thinks more and more. And this, Tendai exemplifies well in the many walks
and morning jogging the Maestro engages in. A sort of abandon in one’s self
comes up and the world all of a sudden becomes a tiring place in which to be
and loneliness becomes a craving. The-world-should-leave-me-alone attitude is
developed and people are pushed away, sometimes with the hope that one person
won’t give up on you. And when it gets worse, a sort of comprehension of the
unknown is sought, and answers are looked for everywhere. This is the perfect
representation of the Maestro, and this character, though seeming unimportant
in the whole weave of the story, plays that important role of representing lost
immigrants who find companionship in themselves, and later on in death.

‘At work, he was
friendly, exuding something resembling warmth, but outside of work he kept to
himself. There was something safe in the white pages of a book,’ this, in
reference to the Maestro, can’t be captured better, but it doesn’t end there
because even ‘his running was a solitary thing; he did not want to be part of
the herd. It was a way of tapping into himself, which meant the discovery of
his own limits at a time when he was beginning to accept the idea of his own
mortality.’ Tendai further strengthens the depth of this character by
introducing to us the works the Maestro reads; works that are a peep into his
consistent questioning mind. First the Maestro misses work, three days in a
row, something he’d never done in four years. Then ‘the arbitrary division of
time into seconds, hours, weeks, months and seasons’ becomes meaningless. The
disposal of his furniture and television and eventually the burning of his
books, the one thing he treasures. This is the turning point.

It is the way Tendai
works out the gradual decomposition of the mind of the Maestro, from a sane
looking man, to a man whose thoughts are scary and complex and questioning, to
a man who runs away from his past and into a mind not his own that makes one
wonder what strange thoughts might be going through the minds of those close to
us.

The Maestro is a
representation of the philosophical and intellectual part of this book despite
him being an O’level certificate holder; whereas, the Mathematician, a PhD
student, whom we’d probably expect more intellectuality from, displays hedonism.
Tendai made his book a collection of contradictions.

Tendai’s Three Ms
might not jolt you out of your chair, but it will definitely leave you laughing
and contemplative.

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Moving On and other Zimbabwean stories

The Goddess of Mtwara

The Daily Assortment of Astonishing Things

Lusaka Punk

The Maestro, The Magistrate & The Mathematician

Textures

The Gonjon Pin

Small Friends

Siqondephi Manje

A Memory This Size

African Violet

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Together

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by Bryony Rheam

Long Time Coming: Short Writings from Zimbabwe

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